Serenity before Thanksgiving Dinner....

**errata

"me" = "we"
(God I hate errors....)

Recycling....

Around my neighborhood, I've noticed an increasing number of people making the trek to the Berkeley Recycling Center. Pulling their shopping cars behind them, sometimes two bungee-corded together, like a train. For a couple of years now, I see these people on a daily basis, all heading west, towards the Bay. But they stop short of the sparkling waters which lead out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Their destination instead is the Berkeley Recycling Center, where bottles and cans are turned in for a few dollars.

When I was so fortunate as to live "up the hill," I would hear the tumble of bottles in the night, breaking the dark quiet before the trash and recycling trucks came by. When I began to look, I saw people, the people who were raiding our trash and recycling bins. Some neighbors got angry -- "if they take all the recycling, the city can't afford curbside pickup!" Perhaps they weren't angry, just practical....Perhaps they were all just being practical....

After I moved off the hill, and my own financial situation was shrinking, (just ahead of the trend which has now overtaken most of us), I used to fantasize that if I needed to, I could collect discarded paper and bottles from the offices in the suburb where I worked -- and where the office buildings, incredibly, were not required to recycle -- and haul it in the back of my van to the Recycling Center in Berkeley. My job out there (in those removed suburbs) ended before I added "recycling" to my resume....

A while back I was going to pick up my daughter from her best friend's house. There was a young woman pulling a full shopping cart (filled not with food but with recycling); her baby -- toddler-age -- was perched on the handle. It was an unwieldy load and it brought tears to my eyes. I was just about to lose my job. I was supporting my three teenagers. I could see myself in that procession. Hastily I stopped my van. I had two single dollar bills and gave them to the woman; I briefly explained why I couldn't give her more. A few tears rolled down her cheeks. She told me how hard it was trying to take care of her child and earn a few dollars here and there. We agreed the only thing to do was keep on going, one foot after another. We shared a laugh (at the expense of people who didn't understand how hard it was to keep going) and then me made our separate ways down the street.

Recycler pushers now seem to travel in loose packs. People by the twos and tens, heading down little side streets and major boulevards, towing their precious scavenged cargo. Last week at dusk I saw a slim man who was dressed as BZ usually dresses for work: pants and a button down shirt, rolled up to his elbows. But this man wasn't going to an office, or to any other "regular" job. He was towing an overflowing shopping cart that must have outweighed him, making his way to the Recycling Center so he could get a few dollars for his dinner....

Sunday Evening....

I suppose I could have ended my Sunday by worrying about the economic crisis which looms (lapping at my door daily), or the fires in Southern California, or whether my children's teenage behavior is within normal limits, but instead I chose to do something I wanted to do...something I've been thinking about doing for months....

I went to my local garden store, (a family owned business), and wandered through the citrus area, (where the sweet scent of the lemon trees was intoxicating), and the native plants, (where even on sale I couldn't afford the five gallon toyons and other offerings), and then picked out red leafed lettuce and spicy greens. I also splurged on a sweet pea variety from 1898, which promises red/purple flowers and a strong fragrance, if I can keep them alive until spring....I got home just before sunset and abandoned myself to planting the tiny lettuces and stringy sweet peas, inhaling the deep earth smell as I worked.

As the sun was disappearing and the clouds in the western sky began to burst into orange and pink, I plopped down into one of my ripped garden chairs, leaned against the end-of-summer pillows and didn't covet any chaise lounge. I also didn't regret leaving all of the world's problems somewhere else for just a few minutes....

Dick Cavett on Language and Sarah Palin....

Just a quick post, because I have to get the word out, please, please, please read Dick Cavett's piece in the 11.14 New York Times, ("The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla"). I'm laughing out loud over my breakfast (except, really, it's a bit of black humor).
So please, read it and pass it on....
http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/

Open Letter to Barack Obama

If I were going to write an open letter to P.E.B.O., it might read like this:

Dear President-Elect Obama,

First of all let me say how happy it makes me to add "Obama" to my Word dictionary....(I note that the 2007 Office already has it while the 2003 version does not.)

And I must tell you Mazal Tov -- Congratulations! You obviously worked hard for this victory and you deserve it.

Oh, and I voted for you (in both the primary and the general elections) and I made many, many phone calls to get out the vote on your behalf. So again, congrats!

Obviously you have your work cut out for you. There will be days that will not be fun or pleasant. Days when your family will not see you and you will barely acknowledge their presence because you're so busy (sorry to remind you of this unpalatable fact -- trust me, I'm a single mom and I know it's hard to have a demanding job and a family). You're bound to encounter days when you'd rather not be serving anyone, let alone our giant, problem-filled country. But I suspect that most days you will feel gratified and energized. (That is my hope for you anyway....)

Without a doubt you are going to have a lot of people and concerns pulling you this way and that. Unfortunately there are a lot of messed up things that need fixing -- and we've voted you as the best person for the job! I'm hoping that you can continue to use the good sense you seem to be blessed with and that you realize the intricacies of the word "triage." And, certainly, you won't be able to please everyone or fix every problem (ask any mom).

That's where being a thoughtful person with a high intellect will serve you well. (Oh, and on that note, let me also tell you thanks for being an unabashed intellectual. Truly I'm not sure I could have sat still for another four years of dumb....) Anyway, I hope that you can use your perspicacity to know what advisers to choose (because you can't know everything you'll need to know about every subject), what decisions to make, and how best to conduct your private and public life. (Oh, and speaking of your private life, it is certainly not my business what you do in your spare time, but I do hope that you do not succumb to the school of thought and behavior that seems to say "I'm famous and I can have sex with anyone I want, just because...." That would really suck for your family and your country and I have to admit that I was personally shocked when I read about John Edwards and I would hate to read the same about you....)

Everyone is telling you what to do...or trying to....I guess the point is, my wish for you is that you can stay true to yourself. (The same advice, really, that I give my three teenagers, especially the older when when he left this fall to travel 3,000 miles from home to attend college.) In other words, as I seem to recall people writing in my 7th grade annual, "Stay as cute as you are and have a bitchen summer...."

Hope Persists....

Day two after the election and maybe life is settling back into something routine....Maybe the goings on of my aging parents, hurting siblings, teenage children, et al. are looming a little larger than they did on Tuesday night....I don't know...but I do know that somehow things are different....

Last night I found myself on a moderately crowded BART train coming home from the City (oh, in case you're not out here, on the Bay, that's what "we" call San Francisco). I plopped into a seat next to a woman in her sixties. "How are you tonight?" I asked (conversation I usually make with strangers). She answered in no hurry, with relaxed conviction, "I'm excellent. How are you?" I admit I was somewhat taken aback by her exhilaration and I stammered a little, "Well, you know, I guess I'm excellent too," and we both laughed. Just then a young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, took a seat opposite us and immediately joined into our conversation. She laughed and said, "I'm great....Obama won..." and she and I together said, "How could we not be great??" And at that, we rose from our seats, as the train pulled out, and high-fived and laughed and did a little hug and dance before returning to our seats on the lurching train.

From that opening, the three of us talked about hope and context and work to be done -- lots of work to be done (which is another good reason why we need eight years, not just four....). The older woman told us that her great grandparents were born in 1860 and they knew slavery and she knew them...and now look where we have come. The younger woman told us she wanted to go to D.C. for the inauguration -- exciting, we told her, but we're too old for that; we'll watch for you on t.v.... One by one, we exited the train at our respective stops and by that time, we were united in the hope of something better to come.

Over a bowl of yogurt and toast this morning, I spoke to family members about their troubles and mine. I told my stepmother about applying for jobs for which I'm under-qualified and over-qualified and for which there are hundreds of similarly situated applicants; she updated me on the health and well-being of my father and step-sister. The problems remain, but in the back of my mind, I'm hoping the context has changed....

Mid-morning found me in downtown Berkeley so that my daughter could sell some books she's outgrown. At the parking meter I inserted the dime I had and then another. I was standing at the machine, somewhat flummoxed about the "error" message that there was a 25 cent minimum and digging in my purse to find more change. Some man, a total stranger, walked up to me and said, "Do you need some money? Do you need some change?" I think I looked at him uncomprehendingly and he smiled broadly, reaching into his pocket for a handful of change, which he then poured into my hand. I was stunned and thankful and took the 46 cents he proffered to ease my parking woes.

What is this?
A world where people talk to each other and care about each other and help each other?
I'm going to persist in answering in the affirmative to all of the above....